Vaccination resumes with arrival of fresh stock

Short supply leads to consternation among the public and confrontation with vaccination centre workers

COVID-19 vaccination exercise, which was suspended for the past one week due to shortage of the doses, resumed on Saturday after Tirunelveli district received 7,800 doses of Covishield and 1,000 doses of Covaxin on Friday night.

After inoculation of 1.54 lakh persons at 84 vaccination centres, the exercise was stopped due to depletion of stock, much to the consternation of people who stood waiting in long queues for the inoculation every day. There were heated arguments between the public and those manning the vaccination centres.

With the arrival of vaccines, each vaccination centre received 100 doses each and the stock got exhausted within no time on Saturday.

Expecting to have their second dose of Covishield, more than 300 persons came to the Tirunelveli Medical College Hospital vaccination centre while an equal number of people in the 18 to 44 age group came to receive their first jab. As the stock got exhausted soon, the waiting public got angered and some of them started shouting against the short supply of vaccines by the Union government. However, the police personnel deployed there pacified them.

Similar scenes could be witnessed at most of the other vaccination centres also even as steps are being taken to vaccinate the liquor shop workers on a priority basis as the the Tasmac retail outlets are to be opened shortly.

In an attempt to encourage vaccination, an individual from Gandhi Nagar in ward 50 of Tirunelveli Corporation gave six country chicken eggs to some of those who were inoculated on Saturday at a vaccination centre in his area.

Thoothukudi

Thoothukudi

district received 4,800 doses of Covishield and 500 doses of Covaxin on Friday night. Of this, 700 doses each were given to Thoothukudi Medical College Hospital and the vaccination centres situated within the Corporation while Eral, Kayamozhi, Thenthirupperai and Pudukottai vaccination centres received 500 each. The stocks got exhausted within a few hours in these centres also.

Kanniyakumari

Kanniyakumari

district was given 9,400 Covishield and 1,500 Covaxin doses. However, the officials struggled a lot to manage the huge crowd that thronged the vaccination centres on Saturday with the little quantity of vaccines received.

“The entire fresh stock was utilised on Saturday itself,” said sources in the Department of Public Health.

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